Interviewer: Jenny Roemmich

Featured Artist: Carly Gough

What do you do to keep yourself motivated and interested in your work? I find looking at other artists work helps to keep me motivated. Seeing what others create makes me want to push myself to improve and come up with unique and interesting new dolls. I find learning new skills or learning how to use new materials/ tools also keeps me interested. For instance I’ve just recently learnt how to sew using a sewing machine (I hate hand sewing!) This has also led me to learning how to make patterns etc.

How did you get into what you do? I used to play an mmo for many years and I always wanted the character I played to be made in to something I could keep. I searched around everywhere and could not find anything like it. Then I stumbled across art dolls on Etsy and found an artist who was able to create my character (creatures of nat). Once I received my doll I knew I wanted to try making one myself and since then I haven’t stopped! Everything was completely new to me. I hadn’t touched clay in about 15 years, I had never sewn before.

Do you listen to music while you create, and if so what song do you play most? I like to listen to 3 doors down and 30 seconds to mars and music like that when I create dolls. I always start off with the song “the kill” and google home then picks some pretty good tunes after it’s finished. When I’m not in the mood for music I tend to listen to prison documentaries on Netflix, I like to have background noise when I create things haha.

If you could be any animal in the world, what animal would you be and why? If I could be any animal in the world I would be a house cat. This is because I would get to nap all day, choose when I want attention have a bowl full of food on tap whenever I want it haha.

What are your favorite dolls to make? My favourite dolls to make are bears and foxes I think. I really want to try making some dragons with wings soon and to use my airbrush to get a bit more crazy with my colours and patterns.